I am at the point of accepting a relegation battle now. As much as we don't want to accept it, we are in one. I'm an Everton fan, and I tried to deny it last season for as long as possible, but I can promise you, we are in a relegation fight. I thought it wasn't true with Everton but week after week it just got worse. It needs to be accepted for Warrington now.
Personally, I want Powell to go, but realistically, the board won't be getting rid of him unless there are serious protests from fans, or they have a change of heart which is unlikely. So where I'm at now is, I'm just going to accept that if he can keep us up, he should stay. But next year, he MUST get us to the Playoffs or he has got to go. Not just missing out by a point or two, or playing some good rugby here and there. It MUST be Playoffs.
The potential benefit to him staying next season is that he will have a 'brand new' squad full of players he has hand picked to deliver results and build the right culture. So he has no excuses. However, my problem with next season is what are we supposed to look like? There doesn't appear to be a structured attack, defence or kicking game and he has had 19 games in charge plus a pre-season. How aren't even one of those things in place at this point. We can't even convincingly score past teams that are a man down. We even struggled against Leeds in Round 1 when they had 11 players on the pitch. I'm pretty sure we conceded a try too.
I have a couple of options in mind as replacements. If we were to pick up one of the NRL outcasts then we have Trent Barrett, Michael Maguire or possibly Justin Holbrook soon enough who would be a semi-realistic option as he has Super League experience.
If we were to try and poach someone from the NRL, chances are it's an Assistant Coach with some pedigree. That for me would be Stephen Kearney. Current Melbourne Storm assistant coach behind Craig Bellamy. Won 2 World Cups with New Zealand. Maybe doesn't have the best overall record but he's someone I'd be willing to try if we were looking for someone. Although, if we were to poach from Super League I'd be up for Steve McNamara.
But I think the realistic and sensible option is still Tony Smith. Just look at what he did for us. People will mention 2017 but I'm still convinced that Richard Agar took over the Head Coaching duties while Smith became Director of Rugby. We did really miss Sandow though.
The thing that frustrates me about this season so much is that it's just catastrophic compared to Smith or Price's first season, even if you choose 2009 or 2010 as Smith's first 'proper' season. They both made us extremely competitive in 2010 and 2018.
Just keep in mind that we apparently had a squad that was 'toxic' and had a 'bad culture', yet Price still got us to 3rd Place, the Challenge Cup Semi Final, gave us a Top 3 attack and Top 3 defence.
In conclusion... I'm happy to let Powell see out this season and go again next season provided we stay up. After that we need success. If not, Powell out, Smith in... But could you imagine next seasons team with Smith as the attacking coach and Price as the defensive coach? What a dream.
Thanks for reading!
